"From bestselling author Jeff Guinn, the dramatic story of how U.S.-Mexico border tensions erupted into open warfare in 1916, as a U.S. military expedition crossed the border to try to capture Mexican guerrilla Pancho Villa -- a military incursion whose effects still haunt the border region to this day"-- 1916. After Pancho Villa's bloody raid on a small US border town, the "Punitive Expedition" was launched in retaliation. Under Pershing's command it brought together the Army, National Guard, and the Texas Rangers, who were little more than organized vigilantes with a profound dislike of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Villa was a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico. The American expedition was the last action by the legendary African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" and the first time the Army used automobiles and trucks, as well as Curtiss Jenny airplanes that did reconnaissance. Guinn tells how the effects of this military incursion still haunt the border region to this day. -- adapted from jacket Provided by publisher.

Prologue: Columbus, New Mexico, March 8-9,1916 --Mexico and America -- Border fences and revolution -- The American puppeteer -- "I do not know what to make of Mexico." -- Film crews and the refugees nobody wanted -- Veracruz -- Carranza and Villa collide -- The Plan de San Diego -- The Texas Rangers and their bandit war -- Wilson chooses Carranza -- Santa Ysabel and the El Paso riots -- Columbus -- The raid -- "The most serious situation" -- Elusive prey -- "Responsibility for the consequences" -- Carrizal -- The return of Villa -- Withdrawal -- Germany makes its move -- The Rangers go too far -- Showdown at Nogales -- Villa's last attack -- Afterward.